But would that be enough to deter Godzilla?
The warships held their fire as the fins approached. Searchlights lit up the night. In the Saratoga’s war room, Serizawa and the others watched tensely in anticipation, waiting for Godzilla to rise up and reveal himself. Nobody expected the giant reptile to simply turn around in the face of the blockade, not with the male MUTO reportedly flying toward the city. The minutes ticked down toward a likely confrontation that Serizawa still had serious reservations about. He understood that Admiral Stenz and the U.S. military could hardly be expected to let such a formidable threat come ashore unopposed, but Serizawa remained unconvinced that challenging Godzilla was a good idea, and not just because of the many valiant lives that might be thrown away in a futile attempt to turn back an unstoppable force of nature. With the MUTOs still abroad, it might well be that obstructing Godzilla, if that was even possible, was not in the world’s best interests.
We may be making a dreadful mistake, he thought.
But then, just when the conflict appeared inevitable, the great fins suddenly descended, sinking beneath the frothing waves until they vanished from view. The Saratoga pitched as turbulence upset the waters ahead. Serizawa held on to the corner of a computerized workstation to keep his balance. Graham gasped in relief. Stenz frowned, but also looked relieved to a degree. Serizawa guessed that the admiral also had profoundly mixed feelings about throwing the combat ships up against Godzilla.
Glowing green sonar screens tracked the leviathan until his mammoth form dissolved into a thousand tiny pixels, broken up by static, and eventually disappeared from the screens altogether. Serizawa assumed that Godzilla had simply chosen to dive under the blockade, as he’d done with the fleet two days ago. That he was still heading for San Francisco Bay went without saying.
Perhaps it is just as well, he thought, although his heart went out to the innocent men, women, and children in the city. They had not asked for their home to become a meeting-place for monsters, and Serizawa had no illusions that Godzilla cared anything for the insignificant human lives between him and his prey. We are all just collateral damage now.
Captain Hampton rushed up to Stenz, clutching a printout. “The warhead transport just went missing,” he reported urgently. “The next closest, we’d have to fly in, but with the MUTOs’ sphere of influence, there’s no way we get one here in time.”
Stenz’s face turned ashen. “Get Air Force recovery teams out there. Find a weapon we can use!”
* * *
The rising sun gradually roused Ford from unconsciousness. His eyelids fluttered, blinking against the early morning light. As he slowly woke from restless dreams of flames and falling, he became aware of a gentle lapping sound nearby. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by the idyllic sight of a solitary doe drinking peacefully from the waters of a muddy river delta. The deer turned its head towards Ford and for a moment their eyes met in silent communion, man and nature sharing the world in peace.
Then a loud noise overhead shattered the moment. Startled, the doe bounded off—past the smoking wreckage of a tank.
Flying low, two Air Force helicopters came in over a mountain ridge. A large heavy-lift Super Stallion was accompanied by a smaller escort chopper. The low-lying delta was strewn with the mangled remains of numerous vehicles and equipment washed down from further upstream. Crushed cars and trucks, both civilian and military, mixed with broken timbers, twisted steel beams, heavy artillery, and other debris less readily identifiable. The tranquil riverbed had become a junkyard and perhaps a graveyard as well. Charred and pulverized human remains could be glimpsed amidst the piled wreckage. Ford avoided looking at them, not wanting to spot Tre or Waltz or any of his other comrades among the dead.
Despite a pounding headache, he lifted his gaze to see at least a half-dozen Airmen abseil down from the hovering escort chopper. Dropping nimbly onto the ground, they spread out and started methodically scouring the ruins a bit further upstream. They moved briskly, intent on their mission.
Thank God, Ford thought.
He assumed the men were searching for survivors. Sitting up weakly, he tried to call out to the rescue team, who didn’t appear to have spotted him yet. His throat was parched and he felt completely wasted, worn out not just by his punishing trip down the river, but by the accumulated stress and exhaustion of the last few days. He could barely remember when he wasn’t about to killed by monsters or trying to make his way halfway across the world. A hoarse whisper escaped his cracked lips, but went unheard beneath the noisy rotors of the choppers. The rescue team kept on searching, not even looking in his direction.
Help, Ford thought. Over here.
Terrified that he might be overlooked and left behind, he forced himself to his feet and began to stagger through the ruins toward the searchers. A wave of dizziness assailed him and the violated landscape seemed to spin around him. He lurched clumsily from side to side, bumping into demolished vehicles and freight cars, which he occasionally grabbed onto for support. Soaked to the skin, he was cold and trembling and aching all over. Somewhere down the river, he’d lost his helmet and goggles along with his rifle. Muddy water dripped from his hair and down his neck. His mouth tasted of blood and silt. His boots squished with every slow, unsteady step.
Elle, he thought. Gotta keep going for Elle and Sam.
A filthy teddy bear, missing one arm, lay half-buried in the muck, next to the charred skeleton of an overturned station wagon. Something about this particular wreck jabbed at his heart, making him wince, but he was too groggy and debilitated to identify the memory, which quickly slipped away. He stumbled past the wagon, leaving the lost toy behind. His heavy boots dragged through the mud and splashed through puddles of icy mountain water. Random pieces of debris threatened to trip him.
He caught glimpses of the search team up ahead. The men were rooting through the wreckage several yards away, still oblivious to Ford’s presence. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t found any other survivors yet. Ford wondered if he was the only one left from the missile train. He tried again to call out, but could barely muster more than a squeak. Darkness encroached on his vision and he feared he was on the verge of passing out again.
I’m right here. Look this way.
His distress went unnoticed as one of the searchers found something among a heap of shattered steel trestles, railway cars, and other debris.
“We’ve got a live one!” he shouted excitedly. “Let’s move!”
In response, lines were lowered from the choppers and hooked into winches. Exhausted and out breath, Ford watched as the surrounding wreckage slid way to reveal not an injured survivor, but an intact nuclear warhead partially submerged in the mud. The missile’s massive booster rockets had been destroyed, but the cone-shaped re-entry vehicle bearing its lethal payload appeared to be still in one piece.
That’s what they came for. Ford’s hopes for rescue faded. The searchers weren’t looking for survivors at all. They’re after a working nuke.
Defeated and at the end of his rope, Ford slumped against the bottom chassis of a blackened Jeep that was lying sideways next to the river. He slid to the ground and watched numbly as the ten-foot-long re-entry vehicle was loaded aboard the larger of the helicopters. Once that was completed, the airmen took turns being hoisted back up into the smaller escort chopper. Just before he departed, the final man took one last look around. His eyes widened as he spotted Ford sagging upon the ground, next to the trashed Jeep.
“Hold it!” the airmen yelled. “We have a man down!”
* * *
The entire ward had become a triage unit. Doctors and nurses, just like Sam’s mom, were super-busy trying to take care of all the hurt people who kept pouring into the hospital, some of them from as far as Nevada. All the blood and confusion scared Sam, who wanted his mommy, but he stayed at the nurse’s desk like he had been told. A new coloring book rested on his lap, ignored and forgotten, while he stared in horrified fascination at the TV set on t
he wall.
“Military personnel are assisting in the evacuations,” a government lady said on the TV. “We’re urging civilians who have not already left to stay off the roads and make their way immediately to shelter.”
A group of soldiers marched through the ward. Their helmets and uniforms looked a lot like the ones his dad wore. Sam looked away from the TV hopefully.
“Daddy?”
He hopped off his seat and tottered after them.
* * *
Elle was at her wit’s end. Just when she thought they couldn’t possibly cope with one more patient, another batch of casualties arrived from the disaster zone, all requiring immediate attention. She’d been running herself ragged for nearly twenty-four hours now, with only short breaks for food and naps. She hadn’t even had a chance to go home yet. Poor Sam had practically been living at the nurse’s station. The only good thing about the ongoing crisis was that she wasn’t worrying every second about Ford and whatever danger he might be in at this very moment.
She glanced anxiously at her wristwatch. Ford had said he’d be here by now and yet there was no sign of him. And no word either.
“Ford, where are you?”
More National Guardsmen invaded the ward. To her dismay, they started rounding up children and critical patients and herding them toward the exits. She hurried toward them.
“Wait, wait!” she protested. “These patients are my responsibility. Where are you taking them?”
A Guardsman took a moment to a moment to answer her. “Across the bridges,” he said gruffly. “Critical and children only.”
Elle was caught off-guard. They were evacuating the hospital now? Did that mean the monsters were that close already?
Laura Watkins joined them, escorting another group of children. “The shelters are going to fill up fast, Elle,” she said. “Trust me, they’ll be much safer outside the city.” The older nurse revealed that she had been assigned to go along with the children and supervise their care at the emergency centers outside the city. “I can take Sam, too.”
Take Sam? Away from her?
Elle realized that Laura was offering as a friend, but she shook her head vehemently.
“No,” she said. “No way. My father-in-law’s dead. I have no idea where my husband is. The phones aren’t working, the roads are closed…” Elle couldn’t imagine not knowing where her son was, too. “I’m as spread out and freaked out right now as I can handle. Sam’s staying with me.”
She glanced over at the nurse’s station, expecting to see the boy where he belonged.
But Sam was gone.
* * *
Sam followed the soldiers through the hospital lobby to outside, where he was surprised and scared by the chaotic scene before him. Soldiers were busily loading patients, many in wheelchairs, into a fleet of bright orange school buses, while harried nurses and paramedics struggled to care for the displaced patients, many of whom looked too sick or hurt to travel. Empty gurneys were rushed back indoors to get still more patients before it was too late. Announcements blared from loudspeakers:
“This is not a test. A mandatory evacuation has been issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the San Francisco Bay Area…”
Confused and disoriented by all the frantic activity, Sam lost sight of the soldiers he’d been trailing. The little boy wandered randomly toward the buses, overlooked in the general tumult. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go now. Back to the nurse’s desk?
A thunderous racket overhead made him tilt his head back. He stared upward as two military helicopters—a big one and a smaller one—thundered across the cloudy sky. A great big bomb, carried in a sling, dangled from cables beneath the larger chopper. All the grownups around him reacted in shock and fear to the sight of the bomb. Sam heard one of the soldiers call it a “warhead.”
* * *
Bloodied, muddied, and dazed, Ford rode with the Air Force response team aboard the escort chopper. A heavy wool blanket was slung around his shoulders. Fresh water and black coffee, in that order, had helped restore him to a degree, but he still felt like death warmed over. He figured he was lucky he was alive at all, considering.
Tre and the others hadn’t made it.
Tucked in among the airmen, Ford watched as the heavy-lift transport chopper peeled away from its escort, flying toward San Francisco Bay with the recovered warhead. Ford wondered if it was one of the bombs he’d replaced the detonator on.
“Where are they taking it?” he asked, referring to the warhead.
“Twenty miles out to sea,” an airman explained. “Convergence point. We’re going to lure them there. Three birds, one stone!”
The escort ‘copter banked away toward Sausalito to the north. Ford shuddered beneath the blanket as the chopper bearing the 300-kiloton warhead made its way toward San Francisco.
His home. His family.
TWENTY
A makeshift command center had been established on a mountain overlook to the north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The scenic location offered a workable view of San Francisco Bay and the city proper. Mobile trailers and temporary structures were swarming with military personnel, who hustled to make sure everything was in readiness for the next, and possibly final, stage of the defense operations. Sunlight filtered through gray clouds. An overcast sky threatened to rain.
Airlifted to the site, Serizawa and Graham accompanied Admiral Stenz, Captain Hampton, and key personnel from the Saratoga as they hurried across the grounds to their new tactical operations center. Hampton updated the admiral on the move.
“We only found one warhead, sir,” he reported, “but it’s intact and already prepped with a manual timer and detonation mechanism. Should be immune to those things.”
Stenz nodded. “Where is it right now?”
“En route, sir. There’s a transport vessel waiting in the bay. The warhead should be there any minute.”
Serizawa paused to look south, where he spied a heavy-lift military helicopter carrying the nuclear warhead toward the bay. The sight of the chopper’s lethal cargo filled his soul with dread. His fingers found the antique watch in his pocket. He thought of mushroom clouds rising over a devastated atoll in the Pacific.
History, he feared, was repeating itself.
* * *
The Air Force helicopter touched down in the foothills overlooking the bay. As Ford exited the chopper, civilian relief workers rushed up to treat his injuries. He brushed them off impatiently, anxious to get to Elle and Sam somehow. It was maddening to be so close, to actually be within sight of the city, and still be separated from his family.
Hang, on Elle, he thought. I’m almost there.
He surveyed his surroundings. A parking lot in the hills was jammed with vehicles: some military, but also plenty of school buses and ambulances. Hundreds of anxious people milled about an emergency staging area and shelter, hastily assembled on the outskirts of the city north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Trying to make sense of the situation, he buttonholed a passing relief worker bearing an armload of first aid supplies.
“Is the city evacuated?” Ford asked.
The other man shook his head. “Only schools and hospitals. Everyone else is still inside.”
Including Elle and Sam? Or were they among those evacuated? Ford flashed back to that nightmarish morning fifteen years ago when he and the other children had been hurriedly evacuated from Miss Okada’s classroom. He knew exactly how scared Sam must be right now, but he had no way of knowing where his family was. For all he knew, Sam was on one of those crowded buses in the parking lot.
He ran toward the vehicles, desperate to find out.
“Hey!” the puzzled relief worker said. “Where are you going?”
* * *
The USNS Yakima, a fast combat support ship, was docked at Fisherman’s Wharf. A skycrane helicopter hovered above the ship as the recovered nuclear warhead was lowered via winches onto the Yakima’s deck. Office workers being evacuated from nea
rby buildings glanced nervously at the nuclear warhead as they were hustled into waiting vans and buses. Jeff Lewis, one of the missile techs assigned to the operation, didn’t blame the spectators for looking askance at the warhead. To be honest, it made him uncomfortable, too. Nuclear bombs belonged in silos or submarines, not heading out into San Francisco Bay.
But what other choice did they have? Nothing else seemed to be stopping the monsters.
* * *
Running out of the hospital, Elle searched frantically for her son.
A full-scale evacuation was underway in front of San Francisco General. EMTs and orderlies assisted in loading critical patients into waiting ambulances, monitoring vitals as they did so. Many of the patients could not walk on their own and had to be wheeled to the vehicles and physically lifted inside. Moving them at all would be a bad idea under most circumstances, but these were definitely not normal conditions. Better to transport them now than leave them helpless in the path of the creatures that were reportedly converging on the city. Unlike more able-bodied people, these patients wouldn’t be able to make their own escape.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the loading and unloading area, National Guard troops were ushering more children onto school buses. Could Sam have accidentally been swept up in the mass evacuation? Standing atop the front steps of the hospital, she peered at the buses, hoping she wasn’t already too late. Panic threatened as one bus after another drove away from the hospital, heading toward God knew where. What if Sam was already on one of those buses? How on Earth would she ever find him again?